Iraq Prez names Dy speaker as PM

• Incumbent PM wants to stay on in office
• US sending arms to Kurds in Iraq

Baghdad: Iraq's president on Monday asked the deputy speaker of parliament, Haider al-Abadi, to form a new government.

Abadi has been nominated prime minister by Shia parties, instead of the incumbent Nouri Maliki. But incumbent Prime Minister Nouri el-Maliki has made it clear he wants to stand for a third term, and pro-Maliki security forces took key sites in Baghdad overnight.

Fouad Massoum said on television on Monday that he hoped al-Ibadi would succeed in forming a government that would "protect the Iraqi people." Earlier, the Iraqi National Alliance, a Shia organisation, nominated Haidar al-Abadi, the deputy speaker of parliament, for the post.

Shia lawmakers in the umbrella organisation the Iraqi National Alliance, which includes Maliki's State of the Law bloc, sent a letter signed by 127 out of more than 170 members in the alliance, to Iraqi President Fuad Masoum, nominating Abadi to replace Maliki, Xinhua quoted the Baghdad satellite channel as saying in a report.

The latest move is likely to increase the political tension in the country as Maliki struggles for a third term in office.
Earlier on Monday, in a boost to Maliki's bid to stay on for a third term, a top Iraqi court ruled that his group is the largest in the country's parliament.

The decision meant that President Fuad Masoum, who Maliki criticised for not intervening after parliament failed to appoint him, would have to invite him to form a government.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, senior US officials said.

Previously, the US had insisted on only selling arms to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been losing ground to Islamic State militants in recent weeks.

The officials wouldn't say which US agency is providing the arms or what weapons are being sent, but one official said it isn't the Pentagon. The CIA has historically done similar quiet arming operations.